Content delivery apparatus and content delivery method using the same

This application relates to and claims priority from Japanese Patent Application No. 2008-110420, filed on Apr. 21, 2008, the entire disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference.

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention relates to a content delivery apparatus and a content delivery method using the same, and more specifically to a technique for acquiring content from an origin server computer storing content and delivering the acquired content to a client computer in accordance with a delivery request from the client computer.

2. Description of Related Art

Content delivery service, where content data, which is video/audio data that has been compressed and coded, is delivered by streaming in response to a request from a client, has been rapidly becoming popular.

Reference 1 discloses a cache server provided between a media server and a client. Specifically, in reference 1, when a delivery request for delivering a certain media file is issued from the client to the media server, the cache server receives the delivery request and delivers the relevant media file, which has been cached, by streaming. If the relevant media file has not been cached in the cache server, the media server delivers the media file to the client by streaming, and the cache server acquires the relevant media file at the same time (see reference 1; JP2003-153229 A).

Due to the rapid diffusion of the content delivery services these days, a need for a content delivery apparatus capable of simultaneously delivering plural pieces of content has increased.

However, capacity for delivering content by streaming per one server computer serving as the content delivery apparatus is limited, so receiving more delivery requests at the same time requires an increase in the number of server computers, and that results in an increase of cost.

In addition, the maximum permissible power per floor on which the server computers are provided needs to be taken into consideration and the power consumption of the server computers needs to be kept low in view of environmental issues these days, so it is difficult to simply increase the number of server computers.

In light of the above circumstances, it is an object of this invention to provide a content delivery system capable of efficiently delivering content by streaming without increasing the capacity or number of server computers.

This invention has been made for solving the above problem and contains the features defining the invention and technical features described below.

Provided according to an aspect of this invention is a content delivery apparatus that includes a delivery server, a storage apparatus operatively connected to the delivery server and including a logical unit for storing data regarding content items, and a management apparatus operatively connected to the delivery server and including a content management unit configured to manage the delivery server and the storage apparatus. The delivery server includes a conversion unit and a delivery unit. The conversion unit is configured to acquire, in response to a content addition request from the content management unit, original data regarding a content item designated by the content addition request from an external origin server, to convert the acquired original data to data for delivery, and to store the data for delivery in the first logical unit. The delivery unit is configured to read from the logical unit, in response to a content delivery request from the client for requesting the delivery of the content item, the data for delivery and to transmit the read data for delivery to the client.

Provided according to another aspect of this invention is a content delivery method using a content delivery apparatus that includes a delivery server, a storage apparatus connected to the delivery server and a management apparatus connected to the delivery server. In the method, the management apparatus first transmits a content addition request to the delivery server in accordance with a management file. The delivery server acquires, in response to the content addition request, original data regarding a content item designated by the content addition request from an external origin server. The delivery server converts the acquired original data to data for delivery, and stores the data for delivery in a logical unit formed in the storage apparatus. Then, the delivery server reads from the logical unit the data for delivery in response to a content delivery request transmitted from the client and transmitting the read data for delivery to the client.

In this invention, since the content data acquired from the origin server is converted to content data for delivery and then stored in the storage apparatus, the delivery server can deliver, even when receiving many content delivery requests at the same time, the content without the delay caused by high load.

In addition, in this invention, even when the storage apparatus stores the content data for delivery, the delivery server can deliver the content data only during a deliverable time, so this invention can also cope with issues relating to intellectual property rights for content.

Other aspects and advantages of the invention will be apparent from the following description and the appended claims.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

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